Old Radio

On this day in 1891, Parker Fennelly was born.

On this day in 1946, Let George Do It debuted on Mutual.

On this day in 1944, Michael Shayne made its radio debut.

On this day in 1906, William Spier was born.

Our other birthday celebration revolves around the 1897 birth of Jane Ace .  Ace was married to radio king Goodman Ace and was the queen of malaprops, or intentionally-funny mispronunciations, a wonderfully-quirky contribution to our language and vernacular.  These include "the crank of dawn," "awfully-wedded," "a hangnail expression," etc. The twisted language contributed to the plots of the long-running series Easy Aces on which the married couple starred.  After this series' cancellation, the dynastic duo re-surfaced on CBS with a show with a not-by-Hoyle spelling of its title, Mr. Ace and Jane .

We commemorate the births of a lot of radio hosts and actors, but today's birthday boy is a producer, John Guedel.  If you don't quite remember his name, you surely remember shows he both produced and created, including The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet and You Bet Your Life . Legend has it he was behind Jack Benny 's little ditty "J-E-L-L-O."  Let's all remember the great John Guedel.

October 7, 1922: WJZ in Newark, NJ and WGY in Schenectady, NY collaborated tp become the first radio networks to broadcast a World Series game directly from the Polo Grounds in New York, with Columnist Grantland Rice as the announcer . The Polo Grounds were four different stadiums located in Upper Manhattan, New York City. The stadium was used by many professional teams in both baseball and American football from 1880 until 1963. World Series broadcasters conducted numerous experiments via the phone line to ensure that the program could reach the listeners from the East Coast to New Jersey. The broadcast of the World Series was a commercial broadcast  that delivered great benefits to the radio station at the time. Ford Motor Company issued the funds of $100,000 to pay for ad impressions on the radio during the game.